Greetings, Green Gurus:

As unbelievable as it sounds, the Environmental PROTECTION Agency has launched a PR blitz in support of their "new use rule" on asbestos. So the BuildingGreen community needs to push back harder. I'm reposting the links to the letter of opposition that Mary Ann Lazarus put up last week. We definitely need more... Read more

Building materials emit massive amounts of carbon long before the lights go on.

In this course, BuildingGreen takes an analytical look at the greenhouse gases that are emitted in the process of constructing our buildings in the first place—the embodied carbon. The report focuses on how architects and designers, working with other key... Read more

Nothing exciting like embodied carbon or EPDs... but I'm interested in some real talk on the actual performance of low-flow fixtures.  

We continue to encounter pushback on water-saving fixtures for concerns of ongoing performance. I'd love to have a dialog in this group because I find it hard to believe these challenges can't be... Read more

ICYMI, this washington post piece reminded me of our summit conversation last Friday about architecture's/SDL's role in reimagining the world post-covid through innovating our practice. 

The article contains some compelling quotes from several visionary architects (fascinated that it's mostly big-A architects, largely bypassing input... Read more

Figured I'd throw out this topic to the hive mind!

We are working on a project in the Midwest that involves taking down and replacing an 100-ish-year-old brick building. We are hoping to find a way to salvage and reuse some of this brick in new construction. I'd love to do an LCA comparison showing the benefits of salvaging the brick vs... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of The PVC Debate: A Fresh Look.

Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, participants will be able to:


1. Examine the actual cost-effectiveness of PVC in terms of quality.
2. Explain what makes PVC a health hazard.
3. Recognize market effects of PVC's durability and... Read more

Hi all,

We've had a number of clients in the states surrounding Texas that have been hit with really high natural gas bills for February. Some as high as $2.00+/therm. Many are healthcare facilities.  Has anyone seen any federal, state, or utility relief programs that are assisting customers with these bills?

Thanks, 

Adam... Read more

I really enjoyed last week's "Integrative Solutions Jam - Getting Better Materials Into Projects".  Thanks BuildingGreen for setting that up.  One of the great parts were the break out groups, where 4 of us could dig into various topics more deeply.

We got into a conversation about circularity and material re-use and Laura Soma with Gly... Read more

We are pursuing sustainability goals (and documentation of those goals) outside of any certification/rating system for a current project.  However, we have set up a criteria list of goals by following strategies/credits from many of those systems (LEED v4 EPDs, SITES v2 threatened tree species, WELL v2 mindful eating, etc.).  This approach is... Read more

Hey, everyone! Eleven months after our initial release, we have now released a totally updated version of our EPIC tool. It’s available at the same location as before (https://epic.ehdd.com) and reflects thousands of hours of work over the last year. From humble beginnings in Excel, EPIC now has about 2,000 users and dozens of logins each day—... Read more

On LEEDuser we divide checklists into multiple project phases. Specifically:

How many of these phases are relevant for BIT best practices?

Note that we also... Read more

I'm looking to compile an outdoor weather station for a local project, and we'd like to add local outdoor CO2 information to our data. I usually work with Onset HOBO products, but they don't offer an outdoor CO2 sensor. Their weather stations can take data from any CO2 sensor with an analog output - does anyone have any suggestions?

Looking for an example or case study for a building utilizing a radiant heating/cooling in climate zone 4a. General use type is office with some public assembly spaces, total of 85,000 sf.

As usual, everyone, especially mechanical engineer, is terrified by the thought of "condensation." So far, I read a DGWW case study, "Energy... Read more

THIS WEBINAR PURCHASE AND REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.

Why high-performance assemblies? And why now? Today we demand better thermal performance from our building assemblies than ever. But higher performance... Read more

Hello, 

We have recently been introduced to the Innovation Design Consurtium and are considering becoming members. Wondering what others have experienced with this recently created group. Any feedback / experience is most appreciated.

Thanks!